t with firm chin and large forehead
and living large black eyes set among sharp lines of lids. The whole
woman was focussed in the eyes, sparkled there, lived there, deep,
limpid, quick, piercing. Her pallor changed to pure whiteness.

"Joe ..." her voice broke. "I've been looking for you...."

He paused, walled away from her by years of isolation. She advanced
slowly; her face became terrible in its hungry love, its mother passion.
She met his eyes, and then he fled to her, and his body shook with
rough, tearless sobs. Her relief came in great tears.

"And all those girls," she was murmuring, "and those men. How did it
happen?"

He drew back; his eyes became strange.

"Mother," he said, harshly, "I'm the guilty one. There was a heap of
cotton waste in the corner, shouldn't have been there. And I let the men
smoke cigarettes."

She was horrified.

"But _why_ did you do that?" she whispered, moving a little away from
him.

"My thoughtlessness ... my _business_." The word was charged with
bitterness. "Business! business! I'm a business man! I wasn't in
business"--he gave a weird laugh--"for the health of my employees! I was
making money!"

She looked at him as if he had ceased being her son and had turned into
a monster. Then she swayed, grasped the bedpost and sank on the bed.

Her voice was low and harsh.

"_Your_ fault ... and all those young girls...."

His mother had judged him; he looked at her with haggard eyes, and spoke
in a hollow voice.

"Nothing will ever wipe this guilt from my mind.... I'm branded for
life ... this thing will go on and on and on every day that I live...."

She glanced at him then, and saw only her son, the child she had carried
in her arms, the boy who had romped with her, and she only knew now that
he was suffering, that no one on earth could be in greater pain.

"Oh, my poor Joe!" she murmured.

"Yes," he went on, beside himself, "I'm blasted with guilt...."

She cried out:

"If you go on like this, we'll both go out of our minds, Joe! Fight!
It's done ... it's over.... From now on, make amends.... Joe!"--She rose
magnificently then--"Your father lost his arm in the war.... Now give
your life to setting things right!"

And she drew him close again. Her words, her love, her belief in him
roused him at last.

"You know the fault isn't all yours," she said. "The factory inspector's
to blame, too--and the men--and the people up-stairs--and the law
because it didn't d